Faith and spaghetti! 9.1.2013

The next weekend we will have a major event in our parish, an event that some of our parishioners have organized to raise funds to support our parish community. I am very grateful to them for their dedication and effort; they have put a great effort working very hard! The last days came into my mind very often one of the verses of Psalm 127: Unless it is the LORD who builds the house, the builders' work is pointless. All of that we do for the good of our parish only makes sense if Jesus is at the center of our efforts, if we get for him all honor and glory. My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, I invite you this Sunday, Lord's Day, to reflect into this idea in the silence of our hearts. If Jesus is not the center of our attention, if we do not keep a constant, real, solid conversation with him, nothing that we do makes sense, and gradually we will become not a real parish or a real community but only and sadly a just philanthropic organization that helps others (sometimes) but that does not worship the Lord. It is true that we are a community of sinners, that we all make mistakes that we all have sins (the first to make mistakes is almost always the pastor! And this is because he is human), however how lucky we are: we gather Sunday after Sunday to receive the forgiveness and grace, to receive his body and blood, to grow as brothers and sisters and as a parish community. Our events (the next and the other events that we will have in the future) will be successful if, first, our celebration of the Eucharist is successful, i.e., if we prepare better our mind and body to attend mass, if we pay more attention to the readings, if we sing with more enthusiasm. In fewer words: if we put more love in our liturgy! Let us remember that we are human so we need the liturgy as the bridge that helps us to connect our mind and body with God. So, spaghetti and meatballs are wonderful, and certainly with God’s help we will have a great event, but the best condiment for our dinner will be our love for the Eucharist, our love for the liturgy, our sense of belonging to a parish community, our love for others and our unity. Let's think about this for this weekend and the first days of the next week, so that when our spaghetti dinner came, we can serve it in a magnificent container: the container of our Catholic faith! Fr. Agustin, pastor.